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Monday, December 26, 2016

News, views and opinions from the Alternative Media ... week ending Dec 25


Paul R Pillar at ConsortiumNews
Danger from Trump’s Distrust of CIA
“I don’t have to be told—you know, I’m, like, a smart person. I don’t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years.”

That’s how President-elect Trump explained in an interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News his intention not to receive daily intelligence briefings as president. He evidently has a major misconception about the content of such briefings. Obviously it would be a waste of the president’s, and everyone else’s, time if the briefings consisted of the same thing in the same words every single day. But they don’t.

Trump has largely declined the opportunities for intelligence briefings that most every other president-elect has taken advantage of, so the “same thing, same words” misconception evidently is a preconceived notion that he somehow arrived at, rather than anything based on experience.

Part of Trump’s explanation is that he delegates to subordinates the role of receiving briefings. He told Wallace that “my generals” — an interesting formulation — are receiving briefings, as is Mike Pence. Perhaps the flow of not just information but decision-making in the Trump White House will lead the intelligence agencies to conclude that Prime Minister Pence is the customer most worth meeting with anyway. But the most important bucks will still have to stop at the president’s desk.

Although keeping the president up-to-date on current developments is certainly a central aspect of intelligence briefings to the president, it is by no means the only important function they serve. Another one concerns what they communicate to the intelligence agencies about the president’s concerns, objectives, questions, and knowledge gaps. What the agencies learn from those interactions constitutes valuable guidance in keeping their work relevant to the needs of the president and his administration.....

 
Chris Hedges on multi-Billion$s arms industry in Israel.  Israel, the nation that is hell-bent on destroying Planet Earth and creating discord in various corners of our world ... while at the same time screaming at the top of its lungs that its neighbors want to destroy it.

 From TheNewAtlas
Welcome to Idlib: America's Model Syrian City 
A report published by The Century Foundation (TCF), a US-based policy think tank, helps shed light on the inner workings of the small northern city of Idlib, Syria.
Idlib is to US State Department-listed foreign terrorist organization Jabhat Al Nusra (also known as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham or Al Qaeda in Syria) as the eastern Syrian city of Al Raqqa is to the self-proclaimed "Islamic State" (IS).

It is also home to a wide range of other militant groups cooperating with the terrorist organization, as well as a myriad of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) funded and directed by the US, Europe, Turkey and the Gulf states.

And while great hope resides within statements of US, European and Gulf state politicians, echoed across their respective media platforms for this city's possible role as an alternative "capital" for an alternative "government," opposed to the current Syrian nation-state, TCF's report dumps a cold bucket of water on what was but a spark, not even a flame of hope........



From CorbettReport
Why Would People Lie About Climate Change?
 – Questions For Corbett #033
In this edition of Questions For Corbett James (and Sibel Edmonds of Newsbud.com) answer your questions on Iran/CIA connections, climate change duplicity, whether the conspirators think they can survive their own conspiracy and much more. Also, James answers that age-old question: why do Hollywood movies suck so much these days?...



 From DailySabah
NATO Chief Auditor Yves Chandelon found dead in suspicious incident
Yves Chandelon, the chief auditor of NATO relating to terrorism financing and money laundering, has been found dead in his car in an incident that raises suspicions.

62-year-old Chandelon's death, resembling a suicide with a shot fired to his head, occurred on Dec. 16 and the body was found in his car the same day although the incident was largely kept away from the media. Belgian press started covering the incident on Dec. 21 as his family raised suspicions about his death.

Despite Chandelon being left-handed, a gun was found in his right hand, and the gun was not one of Chandelon's three registered guns. These details raised suspicions about an assassination rather than a suicide....
 

Many analysts of WW2 are now slowly but surely coming to the real and truthful reason behind the nuclear bombing  of Japan's two cities.   
James Perloff at his blog

To 9/11 and Beyond: The Rothschild-Israeli Obsession with Nuclear Weapons
Ever since writing a cover story on the Kennedy assassination for the November 21, 1988 New American, I have avoided addressing that topic. Kennedy assassination theories form a labyrinth littered with rabbit holes and red herrings.

However, the Internet has turned a computer into a Millennium Falcon that can access information at lightspeed.

It is increasingly clear that the Rothschilds have long been the world’s foremost “Power that Be,” and that Israel, the Rothschilds’ proxy state, has been the world’s leading generator of terrorism, despite mainstream media’s interminable parroting of Israel’s self-portrayal as “victim.”

If anyone would have had the power to assassinate the President of the United States, it was the Rothschild Zionist Establishment. Michael Collins Piper’s book Final Judgment, linking Israel to the Kennedy assassination, got a strong boost in 2004 when Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu stated that Kennedy was assassinated over his opposition to Israel’s nuclear weapons program.....




Brendan O'Neill at SpikedOnline
The Western media: the propaganda wing of al-Qaeda?
Western coverage of Aleppo has been disturbingly shallow and biased.
he British press is morphing into a mouthpiece for al-Qaeda. Consider its coverage of yesterday’s assassination of Andrei Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey. It is borderline sympathetic. The killer’s words — or rather, certain of the killer’s words — have been turned into emotional headlines, into condemnations of Russia’s actions in Syria. That the killer’s first and loudest cry was ‘Allahu Akbar’ — the holler of the modern terrorist — has been downplayed, and in the case of at least one newspaper, the Express, completely ignored. Instead the papers upfront the killer’s other cries, about Aleppo. ‘This is for Aleppo’, says The Times. ‘Remember Aleppo’, says the Mirror’s headline, but with no quote marks, because these were not the exact words spoken by the gunman — they’re more like the Mirror’s own sympathetic echo of the killer’s sentiment.

To get a sense of how disturbing, or at least unusual, this coverage is, imagine if the 2013 murder of British soldier Lee Rigby by two Islamists had led to headlines like ‘This is for Afghanistan’ or ‘Remember Basra’ (those two knifemen, like Karlov’s killer, justified their action as a response to militarism overseas). Or if the 7/7 bombings had not given rise to front pages saying ‘Terror bombs explode across London’ or ‘BASTARDS’ but rather ‘While you kill us in Iraq, we will kill you here’. Reading the early coverage of Karlov’s killing, and noting how different it is to British press coverage of other acts of Islamist terror, one gets the impression that the media think this killing is justified, or at least understandable. ‘Remember Aleppo’: they’re saying this as much as the killer is — a perverse union of terrorist and editorial intent.

But the killer said, first, ‘Allahu Akbar’. Which perhaps suggests that his sympathy was not with Syria as such but with certain forces in Syria. Forces likely to shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ as they kill people. Islamist forces...





From SouthFront
Government buses en route to evacuate the sick and injured
from two government-held villages in the province of Idlib were burned by the so-called “moderate opposition” on December 18. The villages of Foah and Kefraya are encircled by a coalition of militant groups led by Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda). The Aleppo evacuation agreement included the demand to militants to allow people to evacuate from these villages. However, all buses sent for this were attacked and torched. The so-called “opposition” denied this fact despite video and photo evidence confirming that its fighters were involved in the crime. Some Turkish media even reported that “Shia militias” and “pro-Assad terrorist groups” burned the buses....



 Dr John Andrew Morrow at GlobalResearch
Welcome Home ISIS! The Obama Administration’s Plan to 
Reintegrate Foreign Terrorist Fighters

Allegations of US-support for pseudo-Islamist terrorists around the world often fall on deaf ears and are dismissed as the mad ramblings of conspiracy theorists.

According to numerous scholars, including Noam Chomsky, Michel Chossudovsky, and many others, the United States has a long and well-documented history of supporting mass murderers around the world, both covertly and overtly.
As many researchers have reported, the Government of the United States has supported genocidal military dictators around the globe as well as violent extremists, ranging from death-squads in Latin America to MKO terrorists in Iran as well as acts of aggression in other parts of the world.

US-support for the Mujahidin, al-Qaeda, and the early Taliban has been widely reported as has American support for the internationalist terrorists who overthrew Qaddafi and those who have exceeded all bounds in their attempt to annihilate Iraq and Syria.

Despite the clear and present danger that so-called Radical Islamist terrorists pose to the Western world, political and intelligence analysists report that the US administration has continued to use them as “useful geopolitical tools” to weaken and destabilize nation-states.

And while the United States government finally appeared to take a moral stance against ISIS by passing the Fortenberry Resolution on March 15, 2016, and holding the terrorist group responsible for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, it has no intention of actually prosecuting any returning terrorists, and never had the intention of bringing any of them to justice.

As FBI Director James Comey indicated in an interview with “60 Minutes” on October 7, 2014, American citizens who are fighting with ISIS are ....

From CorbettReport


From TheSaker
The disaster of the Russian military Tu-154 – a few short first thoughts
It is too early to conclude what happened with this aircraft, but since I have been asked about this by email, here are my own, personal and provisional, thoughts:

    Mechanical failure: unlikely.  The Tu-154 is a three engine aircraft and an extremely strong beast.  It’s safety record is comparable to most aircraft of its time, even though it was often used in extreme conditions other aircraft types did not have to operate in. The Tu-154 had already taken enough altitude to attempt a return to base or even a water landing.  The weather that day was good.  Besides, the crew did not communicate any problem.  Thus the disaster had to be instantaneous.
    Fuel problem: unlikely.  Fuel problems are always a prime suspect when a crash occurs, but even if the engines had suddenly experienced problems or even a full shutdown, the pilots would have had the time to report this.  Also, like any other aircraft, the Tu-154 can glide and maneuver without power.
    Bird strike: unlikely.  I am not even sure that there have ever been a triple engine failure due to a bird strike but even if there has been, they crew could have reported it which it did not.  And, again, the case of US Airways flight 1549 has shown that even a catastrophic birdstrike does not prevent a fully loaded airliner from attempting to land.
    Pilot error: highly unlikely.  The guys flying this aircraft where extremely experienced and while human error is always possible, it mostly results in situation were it can be reported.  The Tu-154 was a very complex aircraft to operate and it had its weaknesses – but these were all very well known to the Russian crews and this crew was a very experienced one.....






From MoonOfAlabama
False News By Omission Misinforms - Pointing Such Out May Soon Be Censored

Some Israeli military official claim that Hizbullah is using Armored Personal Carriers in Syria, a correct claim, which it received from the Lebanese Armed Forces, a lie. The carriers in question are way out of date tracked vehicles and the LAF once received some upgraded ones from the United States. Israel makes these claims every once a while.

But as was reported when these claims were made on earlier occasions Hizbullah actually took such APCs from the Southern Lebanese Army which was an Israeli proxy force used during the Israeli occupation of Lebanon. When in 2000 Hizbullah finally kicked Israel out of Lebanon, the SLA dissolved and all the weapons Israel had delivered to it were taken into Hizbullah's stocks. They have since been used to fight Israel and various Gulf states proxy Jihadis in Lebanon and Syria.

But you would not learn that from the main Israeli news organization in the United States, the New York Times. Its report makes no mention of the original source of the APCs:........




From ParsToday
Egypt arrests 5 over Aleppo photo hoax
The Egyptian Interior Ministry has arrested a group of five people caught producing fake pictures of people suffering in Syria’s Aleppo.
On Tuesday, the ministry said that the five residents of Port Said, on the Suez Canal, were apprehended while a 12-year-old girl named Ragd was posing for 21-year-old Mustafa, who said that he “normally photographed weddings and ceremonies, but had an idea for something else.”  

“In a conversation with them, the suspects revealed that they had shot a series of scenes to be spread on social media, as actual pictures from Aleppo,” said the ministry.

It added that the house in the pictures had been slated for demolition by the authorities and that the blood was actually red paint smeared on the girl, her fake bandages, and her toy....




Michael Krieger at LibertyBlitzkrieg
The U.S. Interfered in Foreign Presidential Elections 81 Times from 1946-2000
Something we should all be aware of.

From the LA Times:
The U.S. is no stranger to interfering in the elections of other countries
The CIA has accused Russia of interfering in the 2016 presidential election by hacking into Democratic and Republican computer networks and selectively releasing  emails. But critics might point out the U.S. has done similar things.

The U.S. has a long history of attempting to influence presidential elections in other countries – it’s done so as many as 81 times between 1946 and 2000, according to a database amassed by political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University.

That number doesn’t include military coups and regime change efforts following the election of candidates the U.S. didn’t like, notably those in Iran, Guatemala and Chile. Nor does it include general assistance with the electoral process, such as election monitoring.....

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Some News, views and opinion from the Alternative Media ... week ending Sunday Dec 18


From InfomationClearingHouse (video)
Duterte Says 'Bye Bye America' 
We Don't Need Your Money
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte told the United States on Saturday to prepare for repeal of an agreement on deployment of troops and equipment for exercises, declaring "bye-bye America", and we don't need your money....

From RT
‘They slaughtered my family & told me to go’: 
Heart-wrenching stories of Aleppo orphans (EXCLUSIVE)

As Aleppo has been almost entirely liberated from militants by the Syrian Army, the daunting task of rebuilding people’s lives lies ahead. RT’s Lizzie Phelan met with orphaned children from the city whose harrowing stories epitomize the horrors of war.

Over the past few days, some 100,000 civilians, including 40,000 children, have left eastern Aleppo, according to the Russian Reconciliation Center.

The UN says one in four children have been affected by the Syrian war. In Aleppo, that figure appears a gross understatement, Phelan reports.

Children such as Moussa, who is around eight, Jamil, 14, and Asma – around the same age – shared their chilling experience of watching their parents and siblings killed by terrorists before their eyes while they had to flee the fighting on their own.

“My father was killed five days ago,” says the tearful Asma, who’s been left to fend for herself with her five younger brothers and sisters. The Red Crescent picked them up as it did countless other children from what was the rebel-held Aleppo. Dirty, hungry and too traumatized to talk about their ordeal, they were dropped off at an orphanage a few days ago....

From KurdishDaily
Turkish police and soldiers execute more than 400 people in 2016

AKP’s police and soldiers have captured more than 400 Kurds alive and executed them during the genocidal attacks of 2016. The number of people executed by the police and the army under enemy law just this year has surpassed 400 according to data from the Human Rights Association (Insan Haklari Dernegi – IHD).
A small sample from AKP’s political murders are as follows:

Sêvê Demir, Pakize Nayir and Fatma Uyar were murdered by state forces in Sirnak’s Silopi district on the evening of January 4. It was later found out that the person murdered alongside with the female politicians was Islam Atak (20).

In Van’s Edremit district, 12 HPG members were executed on January 10 in a house raid by the special operations units with the claim that “there was a clash”. Access to the file and autopsy reports on the massacre was barred.

In Mardin’s Kiziltepe district, 4 people lost their lives when special operations police opened fire on a vehicle in Turgut Özal neighborhood on January 12. Witness accounts say the vehicle with the license plate 63 F 1579 was in motion when suddenly it was raked by the police armored vehicles. After the attack, 4 unidentified persons were killed in the vehicle and dozens of bullet holes were seen on the vehicle. Later it was found out that one of the people who were executed was DBP administrator Cengiz Erdem, brother of Aydin Erdem who was murdered by the police in a student protest in Amed in 2009.

In Van, a young man named Nadir Tezgel was executed during a raid by the special operations units on January 21.....

Jing Cao at Bloomberg
IBM Lays Out Plans to Hire 25,000 in U.S.
Ahead of Trump Meeting
IBM Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty said she plans to hire about 25,000 people in the U.S. and invest $1 billion over the next four years, laying out her vision for filling technology jobs in America on the eve of a meeting of industry leaders with President-elect Donald Trump....

From VoltaireNet
Yet again Washington allows Palmyra 
to be occupied by Daesh
Once again, Daesh has seized Palmyra following a surprise attack in the period 9 - 12 December 2016.

The “High Representative” of the “Syrian Opposition”, Riad Hijab, has denounced the forces of the Syrian “regime” who pounce on “unarmed civilians” at Aleppo but “jump ship like rats when confronted by the jihadists of the Islamic State at Palmyra.” The reality is a very different story.

In a synchronized [manoeuvre], 5,000 jihadists arrived at Rakka and Mosul to catch in a vice, the thousands of Syrian soldiers defending the city. The Syrian Arab Army had barely enough time to evacuate the civilians and to destroy its arsenal before retreating.

The United States has pushed Daesh to invade the Sunni part of Iraq in June 2014, in order to cut land communications between Tehran and Damascus, the final stage in the “Silk Route”. Once Mosul (Iraq) has been taken, Daesh moved on to Palmyra (Syria) in May 2015. Its troops had then crossed the border under the watch of the US forces who had not intervened and had not even sounded an alert. However, the town had been liberated in March 2016.....

From KurdishQuestion
A bomb blast targeting a bus carrying dozens of soldiers 
in Turkey's central Kayseri province at 08:45 local time has injured and killed several according to reports.

An immediate broadcast ban was issued by the Turkish government.

According to eye-witness reports a car ploughed into the bus, exploding immediately.

Reuters has said the bus, carrying off duty soldiers and civilians was hit by a car laden bomb outside Kayseri University.

Other reports say the bus was carrying special forces soldiers going on leave.

Andrea Germanos at CommonDreams
Amid Finger Pointing at Russia,
US Brings Tanks Back to Cold War Depot
'We need to take action,' says President Obama

As President Barack Obama vows that the United States will take "action" in response to the allegations that Russia interfered with the November election, the U.S. army has started to bring tanks back to a Cold War site in the Netherlands as a show of its "commitment to deterrence in Europe."

The U.S. and Dutch military reopened the Eygelshoven site on Thursday. It will contain "strategically prepositioned critical war stock" including M1 Abrams Tanks and M109 Paladin Self-Propelled Howitzers.....

Depravity has another name "Art" given to it by those who want to make depravity seem normal behaviour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLbFugaFyAA

From ConsortiumNews
As the hysteria about Russia’s alleged interference 
in the U.S. election grows, a key mystery is why U.S. intelligence would rely on “circumstantial evidence” when it has the capability for hard evidence, say U.S. intelligence veterans.

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
MEMORANDUM
Allegations of Hacking Election Are Baseless
A New York Times report on Monday alluding to “overwhelming circumstantial evidence” leading the CIA to believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin “deployed computer hackers with the goal of tipping the election to Donald J. Trump” is, sadly, evidence-free. This is no surprise, because harder evidence of a technical nature points to an inside leak, not hacking – by Russians or anyone else
Monday’s Washington Post reports that Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has joined other senators in calling for a bipartisan investigation of suspected cyber-intrusion by Russia. Reading our short memo could save the Senate from endemic partisanship, expense and unnecessary delay.

In what follows, we draw on decades of senior-level experience – with emphasis on cyber-intelligence and security – to cut through uninformed, largely partisan fog. Far from hiding behind anonymity, we are proud to speak out with the hope of gaining an audience appropriate to what we merit – given our long labors in government and other areas of technology. And corny though it may sound these days, our ethos as intelligence professionals remains, simply, to tell it like it is – without fear or favor.

We have gone through the various claims about hacking. For us, it is child’s play to dismiss them. The email disclosures in question are the result of a leak, not a hack. Here’s the difference between leaking and hacking:

Leak: When someone physically takes data out of an organization and .....

From RT
‘Lies are their agenda’:
Canadian journalist blasts MSM Syria coverage at UN event (VIDEO)
 Western mainstream media’s coverage of the Syrian war is “compromised” as their local sources are “not credible” and, in the case of Aleppo, not even there, a Canadian journalist said in an emotional speech at the UN.

“I’ve been many times to Homs, to Maaloula, to Latakia and Tartus [in Syria] and again, Aleppo, four times. And people’s support of their government is absolutely true. Whatever you hear in the corporate media is completely opposite,” Eva Bartlett, a Canadian journalist and rights activist, told a press conference arranged by the Syrian mission to the UN.

“And, on that note, what you hear in the corporate media, and I will name them – BBC, Guardian, the New York Times etc. – on Aleppo is also the opposite of reality,” she added. The mainstream media narrative, she argued, is meant to mislead the public about what is really happening in Syria by demonizing President Bashar Assad’s government and altering the facts on Russia’s support for Damascus.......




Alex Christoforou at TheDuran
Watch Stephen Colbert spread fake news,
 blast Rex Tillerson, and expose his bigotry towards Russian people
If Stephen Colbert made fun of any other culture in such a manner, it would be blasted as racism and bigotry.

.......Colbert uses that power to spread his liberal religion on to the masses. It’s a religion that has Hillary Clinton as savior, Trump as the devil, and all Russians as lower than life, bumbling Soviet fools, controlled by a strong man dictator.

Colbert seems to always ignore that his liberal ideology has destroyed millions of lives in Iraq, Libya, Serbia, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Syria…while his savior knowingly rigged the primary election against Bernie Sanders, and is now ready to lie about Russian hackers in order to create a constitutional crisis in the USA.

Never mind the small little fact that the RNC was never hacked, that Craig Murray and Julian Assange have both met the individual who leaked the Podesta emails, and that the FBI refuses to corroborate the CIA’s “Russia election hack” story because of lack of evidence.

Evidence and fact are like kryptonite to liberal minds. Its all about holier than thou values, that today’s hollywood forces upon you at gun point......

Alice Salles at AntiMedia
Someone Has Officially Called the CIA’s Bluff over Russia

The scapegoating of Russia is now so widespread, Dirty Wars author and investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill took to The Intercept to call the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on its bluff.

In the article, “Obama Must Declassify Evidence Of Russian Hacking,” Scahill and Jon Schwartz called out U.S. intelligence agencies for their record of deceit, asserting that the American people are not going to simply “take their word for it.”

“U.S. intelligence agencies have repeatedly demonstrated that they regularly both lie and get things horribly wrong,” the article argues. But when it comes to the CIA’s case against Russia’s alleged interference with the latest U.S. presidential elections, it’s impossible to claim the hearsay is based on facts if evidence is not made available to support the agency’s claims.

Nevertheless, Scahill and Schwartz argue, it’s possible that Russia may have pulled some strings. But even if the Kremlin had its reasons and acted on them, America is the country with the long history of election meddling — not Russia.

Take Hillary Clinton’s comments on the Palestinian elections, for instance. A leaked audio recording from 2006 revealed then-senator Clinton advocated doing “something to determine who was going to win” in Palestine’s elections. And yet here she is, hoping to use the “Russia did it” talking point to give censorship a boost. The CIA has its own history of meddling in foreign elections.

In order to give Barack Obama’s administration that extra push to release any “proof” the CIA has that the 2016 U.S. elections were “rigged,” the Intercept’s duo encouraged feds or whistleblowers to use the publication’s secure drop link, where a “patriotic whistleblower” within the U.S. intelligence community may drop the leak that proves Russia is behind President-elect Donald Trump’s win. “[W]e will verify its legitimacy and publish it,” they added.......

Ok...she is a bad girl, she lied.  But what about the parents. They shaved off her hair and eyebrows as punishment?  They need to face some sort of punishment for that abuse.  It's more than possible the teen lied because she wanted to stop wearing the hijab and this made-up incident was to make her parents see that wearing the headwear was dangerous for Muslim girls.




Isabella Mackie at VICE
The ongoing Yemeni civil war
has pushed the country closer to collapse and to the brink of famine. New figures released by children’s charity UNICEF show that more than 462,000 children there are coping with severe acute malnutrition and are at risk of starvation — a staggering 200 percent increase since 2014 — and 2.2. million children require urgent care.

“Malnutrition in Yemen is at an all-time high and increasing,” said Dr. Meritxell Relano, a UNICEF representative in Yemen. “The state of health of children in the Middle East’s poorest country has never been as catastrophic as it is today.”....





From WitnessIraq
9th Circuit hears oral argument in Saleh v. Bush, et al.

San Francisco, Calif. — December 12, 2016 was a historic day, marking the first time that a U.S. court heard argument related to the actions of senior Bush-era officials who were responsible for the planning and waging of the Iraq War.

Circuit court judges Andrew Hurwitz and Susan Graber and District Court judge Richard Boulware (sitting by designation on the 9th Circuit), heard argument that the immunity granted to former President George W. Bush and other officials by the federal district court related to their conduct in waging the Iraq War should be overturned. This immunity was provided in December 2014, resulting in the current appeal.

The judges spent most of oral argument focusing on the nature of the domestic immunity, questioning both counsel for the Iraqi plaintiff, Sundus Saleh, as well as counsel for the United States about where immunity ends for government officials.

The judges will issue their opinion as to whether the immunity should be overturned in the coming weeks.....




Junaid Ghoto at GlobalResearch
The Myth of India 
as an Upcoming Asian Economic Powerhouse. Rising Poverty and Social Inequality
A common myth around the world is that, India is developing country at a very rapid pace and going to be a powerhouse in Asia soon. Some even argue we should learn from them and some argue independence should have never happened and we would have been a better off with India rather than independent. And even some pessimist especially Pakistani and Bangladeshi people regret the independence in 1947 and common chorus can be heard “look where India has reached today and where we are”.

Regret or not, but it is important to see where India stands today, the idea to write regarding this is to differentiate the illusion from fact and give reason so the sane understanding follows. A nation is called developing not because of its population, or defense budget, but how good the people fare in that country; it is about the human development and economic growth which include improving education and health by having less people as possible under the poverty line and high incomes per capita of citizen in the country, this will come when the state will have a sound economic system.

India is no doubt one of the biggest democracy in the world; because it has the highest population, Simple! (China highly populist, and officially “communist”). India is the second biggest nation in the world in terms of population and seventh largest in terms of area. According to the IMF as of 2015, the Indian economically nominally worth US$ 2.182 trillion, it, it’s the eleventh largest economy in terms of market exchange rates at US$ 8.027 trillion, third largest by PPP, with an annual GDP growth of last decade’s 5.8%.[1]...

Would you want these women to be under the control of wahhabi demons?


If you are a critic of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Qatar, Iran and other nations that are known to degrade and belittle women  but when it comes to Syria you can still argue that these Syrian women deserve to be thrown to a cult that wants to cover up women and shackle them inside the four walls of a house, because you consider the ends justify the means ... the means of getting rid of Assad, then all I can say to you is that you are a Fucking Hypocrite and may you and the women in your family suffer a worse fate than that wished by you on these secular, independent women of Syria.




On Aleppo liberation and other news on Syria, mostly from the more reliable news medium, the Alternative Media ... week ending December 18




From RT
Street celebrations in Aleppo on news of Syrian Army retaking east of city
– RT reporter (VIDEO)
Aleppo streets have erupted in celebrations with people waving flags and shooting in the air as reports said the Syrian Army has taken control of the last militant-held areas in eastern part of the city, RT’s Lizzie Phelan reports from the ground
While an official statement on the situation is yet to emerge from Damascus, a source close to Syrian Army headquarters told RIA Novosti that the army is on the brink of liberating the city.

“The army has begun clearing out the last terrorist stronghold in the Salaheddin neighborhood. The terrorists are firing back and are trying to use mortars,” the source told the news agency. “However, the complete liberation of Aleppo could happen soon, which will be officially announced.”

Meanwhile people have already taken to the streets of the war-torn city in celebrations, RT’s Lizzie Phelan reported from Aleppo....


This is supposedly filmed during the final stage of the Battle of Aleppo with headchoppers in  retreat.


 

From 21stCenturyWire BREAKING: At Least 14 US Coalition Military Officers Captured
by Syrian Special Forces in East Aleppo Bunker
SPECIAL REPORT

DAMASCUS – According to two reports coming out of Aleppo today, at least 14 US Coalition military officers were captured this morning in an East Aleppo bunker by Syrian Special Forces.

This story was quietly leaked by Voltaire.net, who announced, “The Security Council is sitting in private on Friday, December 16, 2016, at 17:00 GMT, while NATO officers were arrested this morning by the Syrian Special Forces in a bunker in East Aleppo.”

Fares Shehabi MP, a prominent Syrian Parliamentarian and head of Aleppo’s Chamber of Commerce published the names of the Coalition officers on his Facebook page on the 15th December (emphasis added):

Mutaz Kanoğlu – Turkey
David Scott Winer – USA
David Shlomo Aram – Israel
Muhamad Tamimi – Qatar
Muhamad Ahmad Assabian – Saudi
Abd-el-Menham Fahd al Harij – Saudi
Islam Salam Ezzahran Al Hajlan – Saudi
Ahmed Ben Naoufel Al Darij – Saudi
Muhamad Hassan Al Sabihi – Saudi
Hamad Fahad Al Dousri – Saudi
Amjad Qassem Al Tiraoui – Jordan
Qassem Saad Al Shamry – Saudi
Ayman Qassem Al Thahalbi – Saudi
Mohamed Ech-Chafihi El Idrissi – Moroccan

In addition to Voltaire.net, the other original report was provided by Damascus-based Syrian journalist Said Hilal Alcharifi. According to Alcharifi, captured “NATO” officers were from a number of member states including the US, France, Germany and Turkey, as well as Israel. Here is his statement (translated from French):

“Thanks to information received, Syrian authorities discovered the headquarters of high ranking western/NATO officers in the basement of an area in East Aleppo and have captured them alive. Some names have already been given to Syrian journalists, myself included. The nationalities are US, French, British, German, Israeli, Turkish, Saudi, Moroccan, Qatari etc. In light of their nationalities and their rank, I assure you that the Syrian government have a very important catch, which should enable them to direct negotiations with the countries that have tried to destroy them.”......

From RT
‘They slaughtered my family & told me to go’: 
Heart-wrenching stories of Aleppo orphans (EXCLUSIVE)

As Aleppo has been almost entirely liberated from militants by the Syrian Army, the daunting task of rebuilding people’s lives lies ahead. RT’s Lizzie Phelan met with orphaned children from the city whose harrowing stories epitomize the horrors of war.

Over the past few days, some 100,000 civilians, including 40,000 children, have left eastern Aleppo, according to the Russian Reconciliation Center.

The UN says one in four children have been affected by the Syrian war. In Aleppo, that figure appears a gross understatement, Phelan reports.

Children such as Moussa, who is around eight, Jamil, 14, and Asma – around the same age – shared their chilling experience of watching their parents and siblings killed by terrorists before their eyes while they had to flee the fighting on their own.

“My father was killed five days ago,” says the tearful Asma, who’s been left to fend for herself with her five younger brothers and sisters. The Red Crescent picked them up as it did countless other children from what was the rebel-held Aleppo. Dirty, hungry and too traumatized to talk about their ordeal, they were dropped off at an orphanage a few days ago....




from MoonOfAlabama
MSM Create #Fakenews Storm As Rebel Aleppo Vanishes

I have not ever experienced a #fakenews onslaught as today. Every mainstream media and agency seems to have lost all inhibitions and is reporting any rumor claim regarding the liberation of east-Aleppo as fact.

Consider this BBC headline and opener:

Aleppo battle: UN says 82 civilians shot on the spot

    Syrian pro-government forces have been entering homes in eastern Aleppo and killing those inside, including women and children, the UN says.

    The UN's human rights office said it had reliable evidence that in four areas 82 civilians were shot on sight.

1. A UN human rights office does not exists. What the BBC means is the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR). That commissioner is the Jordanian Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, a Hashemite educated in the UK and U.S. and a relative of the Jordanian dictator king. That is relevant to note as Jordan is heavily involved in the supporting the "rebels" against the Syrian government.

2. The office has not "said" that "82 civilians were shot" or other such gruesome stuff. It said that there were "sources" that have "reports" that such happened. From its press statement today:

    Multiple sources have reports that tens of civilians were shot dead yesterday in al-Ahrar Square in al-Kallaseh neighbourhood, and also in Bustan al-Qasr, by Government forces and their allies, including allegedly the Iraqi al-Nujabaa armed group.

The OHCHR claiming that "multiple sources have reports" of XYZ, without revealing neither the "sources" nor the provenance of the alleged "reports" of XYZ, certainly does not translate into "The UN said XYZ happened."....





From SputnikNews
Aleppo Liberation Exposed Mainstream Media and Their Lies About Syria
Radio Sputnik discussed the situation in East Aleppo with Vanessa Beeley,
an investigative journalist and peace activist, who has just returned from the city and is currently in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
“What we are seeing is an incredible hysteria from the corporate and mainstream media about the situation on the ground in East Aleppo and I can categorically and unequivocally say that the majority of their reports are based on unverified sources and are blatantly untrue,” Beeley said....




From GlobalResearch
“I Just Want Truth to Come out”:
 Syrian Army Captain Tells About Aleppo Victory. America is Helping the Terrorists
Earlier in the day, the Russian Defense Ministry said that all eastern Aleppo districts had been freed from terrorists, while some hotbeds of militants’ resistance remained.

“I don’t know what has been happening in the media. I could not watch the television. The soldiers don’t have the internet; they don’t know what is being said. What we do know is that when we came to Aleppo the situation was bad. One of my soldiers was killed,” Abboud said.

He further said that in the Old City there was one woman who got sick. The soldiers called the army doctor and he said that she was in dire need of surgery, “The doctor started the surgery right away in order to save her life,” the captain said....




From Alalam

Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad Congratulates Nation
on Aleppo Liberation (video)
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has offered felicitations to the Arab nation on the liberation of Aleppo city from foreign-backed militants amid an ongoing mission to take out the remaining armed men and civilians from the embattled northwestern city.
 In a video posted on the Syrian presidency’s official social media accounts, Assad said the “liberation” was “history in the making and worthy of more than the word ‘congratulations’.”

“What is happening today is the writing of a history written by every Syrian citizen. The writing did not start today, it started six years ago when the crisis and war started against Syria,” he added.

"I think that after the liberation of Aleppo we'll talk about the situation as ... before the liberation of Aleppo and after the liberation of Aleppo," he said....


Christmas cartoon ... Is Santa a hacker?



No, it's not World War3 ... 70+ countries are only playing at it, the West will call it WW3 only if the Powers-that-be come out victorious

When WW2 was going on for those ... what 6 years, 8 years?  .... did anyone say they are into WW2?

Note how in the list below Russia, Syria, Iran, China and some other prominent countries are not mentioned.
Wouldn't that omission mean that the WW3 we are in neck deep right now is being fought by the Big List against
the omitted list?  


As for the "Islamic State" that the 70+ nations are purportedly battling against, that entity has gone through a slew of name changes just like rebels, moderate rebels, al Qaeda, al nusra, etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.  

Funny thing is: Most of us are accepting the propaganda that these 70+ nations while still not able to overcome a  ragtag army of jihadis, have declared they are now on Russia's borders to deter it. Deter it how and from what ? Will Trump stop this madness or will he join in it and shower down on us the nuclear war without which the Empire is refusing to lay down and call it quits?
 

From CongressionalResearchService
Coalition Contributions to Countering the
Islamic State


....According to the U.S. State Department, there are currently 66 participants in the coalition,
including:
Afghanistan,
Albania,
the Arab League,
Australia,
Austria,
Bahrain,
Belgium,
Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Bulgaria,
Canada,
Croatia,
Cyprus,
Czech Republic,
Denmark,
Egypt,
Estonia,
the European Union,
Finland,
France,
Georgia,
Germany,
Greece,
Hungary,
Iceland,
Iraq,
Ireland,
Italy,
Japan,
Jordan,
Kosovo,
Kuwait,
Latvia,
Lebanon,
Lithuania,
Luxembourg,
Macedonia,
Malaysia,
Moldova,
Montenegro,
Morocco,
The Netherlands,
New Zealand,
Nigeria,
Norway,
Oman,
Panama,
Poland,
Portugal,
Qatar,
Republic of Korea,
Romania,
Saudi Arabia,
Serbia,
Singapore,
Slovakia,
Slovenia,
Somalia,
Spain,
Sweden,
Taiwan,
Tunisia,
Turkey,
Ukraine,
The United Arab Emirates,
The United Kingdom
and the United States.

Each country is contributing to the coalition in a manner commensurate with its national interests
and comparative advantage. Contributions include both military and non-military assistance, although reporting on non-military contributions tends to be sporadic, as many countries donate
humanitarian assistance directly to local governments or....

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Dem Rep. Tulsi Gabbard ... on the right side of history



Would you like to earn US $17k a month? All you have to do is spout lies


Rania Khalek at Alternet
British Govt-Funded Outlet Offered Journalist $17,000 a Month 
to Produce Propaganda for Syrian Rebels

Emails reveal that a popular source for mainstream Western media is a U.K.-backed propaganda outlet.
The Revolutionary Forces of Syria (RFS) media office, a major Syrian opposition media outfit and frequent source of information for Western media, is funded by the British government and is managed by Westerners operating out of Turkey, according to emails provided to AlterNet by a Middle East reporter RFS tried to recruit...

....Over the summer, the Middle East reporter, who asked not to be named, was contacted by an American acquaintance and former colleague about working for RFS.

“I'm currently in Istanbul, working on a media project for the HMG [the British government],” wrote the acquaintance in an email time-stamped June 23. “We're working on media surrounding the Syrian conflict, as one of their three partners.” The email included links to RFS Media’s English website and SMO Media, an Arabic website that covers the Southern Front, a Western-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) group.

“[W]e’re looking for a managing editor/production manager to head up our team here in Istanbul, and I thought you'd be a great fit. I was wondering if you had any interest, or knew of anyone looking to move out to Istanbul for an opportunity," the acquaintance added.

In a followup phone conversation, the acquaintance explained to the reporter what the job would entail.

“I would have been talking to opposition people on the ground and writing news pieces based on statements from media activists who are affiliated with the armed groups in places like Aleppo,” the reporter later explained.

The salary offered for this task was an eye-popping $17,000 a month.....

Eva Bartlett, a Canadian freelance journalist putting the so-called "journalists" at CBC, Globe&Mail, Toronto Star,etc. to utter shame


Truth teller Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett at a Press Conference on Syria situation.


Assad on Palmyra: ISIS “came with different and huge manpower and firepower" which they "could only have done that with the support of states. Not state; states."


The pro-Muslim Brotherhood, outgoing president of the USA and his minion Ash Carter, have supplied WMDs to their employees (ISIS/headchoppers/"moderate rebels"/al-nusra/al qaeda,etc) to go forth and destroy Palmyra. 
 
From RT
ISIS attack on Palmyra directly linked to US waiver on rebel arms supplies – Assad to RT (EXCLUSIVE)

 President Obama’s announcement of a waiver for arming unspecified rebel groups in Syria came shortly before the terrorist group Islamic State launched a massive attack on Palmyra. Syrian President Bashar Assad believes it was no coincidence, he told RT.

"The announcement of the lifting of that embargo is related directly to the attack on Palmyra and to the support of other terrorists outside Aleppo, because when they are defeated in Aleppo, the United States and the West, they need to support their proxies somewhere else," he said.

"The crux of that announcement is to create more chaos, because the United States creates chaos in order to manage this chaos," Assad added.

He added that Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) forces “came with different and huge manpower and firepower that ISIS never had before during this attack, and they attacked on a huge front, tens of kilometers that could be a front of armies. ISIS could only have done that with the support of states. Not state; states."

In the interview, the Syrian leader explained how his approach to fighting terrorism differs from that of the US, why he believes the military success of his forces in Aleppo was taken so negatively in the West, and what he expects from US President-elect Donald Trump....

....So, for them the defeat of the terrorists is the defeating of their proxies, to talk bluntly. These are their proxies, and for them the defeat of these terrorists is the defeat of the countries that supervised them, whether regional countries or Western countries like United States, first of all United States, and France, and UK....

... The defeat of the terrorists, this is their own defeat because these are their real army on the ground. They didn't interfere in Syria, or intervened, directly; they have intervened through these proxies. So, that's how we have to look at it if we want to be realistic, regardless of their statements...
...(ISIS) came with different and huge manpower and firepower that ISIS never had before during this attack, and they attacked on a huge front, tens of kilometers that could be a front of armies. ISIS could only have done that with the support of states. Not state; states. They came with different machineguns, cannons, artillery, everything is different. So, it could only happen when they come in this desert with the supervision of the American alliance that's supposed to attack them in al-Raqqa and Mosul and Deir Ezzor, but it didn't happen; they either turned a blind eye on what ISIS is going to do, and, or - and that's what I believe – they pushed toward Palmyra. So, it's not about Mosul. We don't have to fall in that trap. It's about al-Raqqa and Deir Ezzor. They are very close, only a few hundred kilometers, they could come under the supervision of the American satellites and the American drones and the American support....

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Christmas 2016 ...Cartoons







News, views and opinions from the Alternative Media ... week ending Dec 11


Marjorie Cohn at ConsortiumNews
The Remarkable Story of Fidel Castro

When Fidel Castro died on Nov. 25 at the age of 90, we lost one of the most remarkable leaders of the Twentieth Century. No other head of state has so steadfastly stood up to the United States and survived.
In 1959, the Cuban Revolution, led by Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara, overthrew the ruthless Fulgencio Batista, who had come to power in a coup d’état. Batista’s government had protected the interests of the wealthy landowners. In order to control the populace, Batista had carried out torture and public executions, killing as many as 20,000 people. During his regime, Batista was supported — financially and militarily — by the United States. Indeed, the U.S. Mafia’s gambling, drug and prostitution operations flourished under Batista’s government.

Led by Castro, the new Cuban government expropriated U.S.-owned property, companies and holdings in Cuba. The United States responded with a punishing economic embargo, which later became a blockade. The CIA attempted unsuccessfully to overthrow the revolution in the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.

Since 1959, the U.S. government and the expatriated Cuban-Americans who fled Cuba after the revolution have tried mightily to topple the Castro government, without success. Castro survived more than 630 assassination attempts.

Legacy of Fidel Castro
“What’s amazing here is you’ve got a country that’s suffered an illegal economic blockade by the United States for almost half a century and yet it’s been able to give its people the best standard of health care, brilliant education,” Ken Livingstone, former mayor of London, said in 2006. “To do this in the teeth of an almost economic war is a tribute to Fidel Castro.”....




Brandon Smith at Alt-Market
Understanding Evil: From Globalism To Pizzagate

I have spent the better part of the last 10 years working diligently to investigate and relate information on economics and geopolitical discourse for the liberty movement. However, long before I delved into these subjects my primary interests of study were the human mind and the human “soul” (yes, I’m using a spiritual term).

My fascination with economics and sociopolitical events has always been rooted in the human element. That is to say, while economics is often treated as a mathematical and statistical field, it is also driven by psychology. To know the behavior of man is to know the future of all his endeavors, good or evil.

Evil is what we are specifically here to discuss. I have touched on the issue in various articles in the past including Are Globalists Evil Or Just Misunderstood, but with extreme tensions taking shape this year in light of the U.S. election as well as the exploding online community investigation of “Pizzagate,” I am compelled to examine it once again.

I will not be grappling with this issue from a particularly religious perspective. Evil applies to everyone regardless of their belief system, or even their lack of belief. Evil is secular in its influence.

The first and most important thing to understand is this — evil is NOT simply a social or religious construct, it is an inherent element of the human psyche. Carl Gustav Jung was one of the few psychologists in history to dare write extensively on the issue of evil from a scientific perspective as well as a metaphysical perspective.  I highly recommend a book of his collected works on this subject titled 'Jung On Evil', edited by Murray Stein, for those who are interested in a deeper view....

From Desiforce
Egypt bomb blast kills at least 25 worshippers in Cairo church

A bomb blast killed at least 25 worshippers during Sunday mass inside a Cairo church near the seat of the Coptic pope who heads Egypt’s Christian minority, state media said.

The explosion ripped through the church at around 10:00 am (0800 GMT), Egyptian security officials said.

It was the deadliest suspected attack on the country’s beleaguered Christian minority in recent memory.

The blast in the church adjacent to Saint Mark’s Coptic Cathedral in the Abbasiya neighbourhood shattered its glass windows and left a scene of carnage in the main prayer hall.

State television quoted a security official saying a bomb made of TNT appeared to have been behind the explosion.

“Tell the sheikh, tell the priest, Egyptians’ blood is not cheap,” a crowd outside the church chanted, as ambulances lined up to evacuate the casualties.

The church “is deeply loved by many Coptic faithful in Cairo and it has a regular parish presence,” said Bishop Angaelos, the General Bishop for the Coptic Church in Britain.....




Jason Ditz at antiwar
Bipartisan Bill Would Forbid US Funding ISIS, al-Qaeda Affiliates

Gabbert-Rohrabacher Bill Would Effectively End CIA Program Arming Syrian Rebels
The Stop Arming Terrorists Act (SATA) has been introduced today in the House of Representatives by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D – HI). The bill is a bipartisan effort, co-sponsored by Reps. Peter Welch (D – VT), Barbara Lee (D – CA), Dana Rohrabacher (R – CA), and Thomas Massie (R – KY) which would forbid the US government from using taxpayer dollars to arm, fund, or train terrorist organizations.
Rep. Gabbard noted that it has been against the law for years for individual Americans to fund terrorist organizations, but that the US has been routinely doing so for years in Syria, providing arms to many terrorist-linked groups within Syria’s rebellion.

The bill appears aimed primarily at ending the CIA program smuggling arms to Syrian rebels, something President-elect Donald Trump has also expressed support for. The bill singles out ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (the “rebranded” version of al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front) and forbids support to them, their allies, or foreign nations who are themselves providing support for the groups....

Weather is not climate


Ron Paul at RonPaulInstitute
Trump’s Promised ‘New Foreign Policy’ Must Abandon Regime Change for Iran

President-elect Donald Trump told a Cincinnati audience this week that he intends to make some big changes in US foreign policy. During his “thank you” tour in the midwest, Trump had this to say:

    We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past. We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments. …In our dealings with other countries we will seek shared interests wherever possible...”

If this is really to be President Trump’s foreign policy, it would be a welcome change from the destructive path pursued by the two previous administrations. Such a foreign policy would go a long way toward making us safer and more prosperous, as we would greatly reduce the possibility of a “blowback” attack from abroad, and we would save untold billions with a foreign policy of restraint.

However as we know with politicians, there is often a huge gap between pronouncements before entering office and actions once in office. Who can forget President George W. Bush’s foreign policy promises as a candidate 16 years ago? As a candidate he said:

    I am not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world saying ‘this is the way it’s got to be.’ … If we’re an arrogant nation they will resent us, if we’re a humble nation but strong they’ll welcome us.

Unfortunately as soon as he took office, George W. Bush pursued a completely different foreign policy, attacking countries like Iraq at the urging of the neocons he placed in positions of power in his White House and State Department...

 
Pizzagate: "BBC Fake News Psyop" Debunked


 

Jonathan Turley at RonPaulInstitute
Washington Post Issues Correction To 'Fake News' Story

The Washington Post has been under fire for its publication of an article entitled, “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say.” The article by Craig Timberg relied on a controversial website called PropOrNot, which published what is little more than a black list of website that the authors deemed purveyors of fake news including some of the largest sites on the Internet like Drudge Report. However, the previously unknown group was itself criticized for listing “allies” that proved false. Yesterday, Hillary Clinton ramped up the call for action against “fake news” which she described as an epidemic. Now the Washington Post has published a rather cryptic correction to the fake news story. The controversy is the subject of my latest column in USA Today.

The organization listed a variety of news sites as illegitimate. It included some of the most popular political sites from the left and right Truthout, Zero Hedge, Antiwar.com, and the Ron Paul Institute. It even includes one of the most read sites on the Internet, the Drudge Report. Notably, it also included WikiLeaks, which has been credited with exposing political corruption and unlawful surveillance programs.

The Washington Post is the largest newspaper to buy the clearly biased list as the work of objective “experts” — ignoring that the site relies on anonymity of those contributors. When the Post ran the story, some were eager to push the story as a reason why they lost the election. The former White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer tweeted, “Why isn’t this the biggest story in the world right now?” The reason is that it was facially absurd.....

Yemen


Craig Murray at his blog
Julian Assange’s Defence Statement
Julian Assange has published his statement given to the Swedish prosecutor. I give it in full below. I do implore you to read it. This is the first time his defence has been made public, although the media have been delighted to report the leaked allegations against him in detail.
His defence will not be given in the same detail in the media.

It is worth noting that under Swedish law the identity of both the accuser and the accused ought to be protected, but that did not prevent Swedish police and prosecutors leaking details to a complicit media, or the women concerned selling their story to the tabloids.

You really do owe it to yourself, to justice and to personal honesty to read Julian’s side of the story. ....

Corbett Report: Trump Fills The Swamp with Stevn Mnuchin


Saker at his blog
Wesley Clark Jr apologizes to the Lakota nation (UPDATED 2x)

An incredible moment of healing at Standing Rock: Hundreds of veterans ask Native elders for forgiveness.

“We fought you. We took your land. We signed treaties that we broke. We stole minerals from your sacred hills. We blasted the faces of our presidents onto your sacred mountain… We didn’t respect you, we polluted your Earth, we’ve hurt you in so many ways but we’ve come to say that we are sorry. We are at your service and we beg for your forgiveness.” – Wes Clark, Jr.



More about Wesley Clark Jr and this amazing event here:.........

From RT
RT crew first to reach liberated area of Aleppo’s Old City 
(EXCLUSIVE VIDEO)
Battles continue between pro-government forces and insurgents in Aleppo’s Old City, with Damascus slowly winning back territory. RT’s Lizzie Phelan and her crew were the first journalists to visit the neighborhoods just captured by the government.
“It is still not entirely safe here. The opposition forces are only a couple of hundreds of meters away. The area needs to be cleaned from unused weapons and mines left,” she reported by phone.

She said her crew saw many weapons abandoned by the militants stashed in buildings, including the home-made gas cylinder rockets they have been using to shell government forces.....

Jason Ditz at AntiWar
US Officials: Al-Qaeda’s Loss in Aleppo Is Also America’s Loss

Officials See al-Qaeda Rebounding Quicker Than US From 'Defeat'

The increasingly public re-branding of America’s war in Syria as a proxy war against Russia has suited a lot of officials, particularly in the Pentagon, who see a new Cold War as a ticket to a bigger budget. With Russia’s fighting focusing on al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front, this Russo-centric view has seen the administration realigning US interests more directly with al-Qaeda.
Embarrassing as America’s realignment toward al-Qaeda is, officials see the defeat of the al-Qaeda-dominated rebels in Aleppo as an even bigger blow, presenting the loss of Aleppo as Russia’s victory and America’s loss, in addition to being al-Qaeda’s loss.

This “loss” is being presented by current officials as potentially hindering President-elect Donald Trump’s policy choices going forward, though since Trump was not in favor of backing al-Qaeda, or backing Syrian rebels in general, it probably makes his go-to plan of moving toward fighting ISIS even simpler to sell to the public....




Robert Parry at ConsortiumNews
Big Media’s Contra-Cocaine Cover-up

Amid the mainstream U.S. media’s current self-righteous frenzy against “fake news,” it’s worth recalling how the big newspapers destroyed Gary Webb, an honest journalist who exposed some hard truths about the Reagan administration’s collaboration with Nicaraguan Contra cocaine traffickers.

Webb’s reward for reviving that important scandal in 1996 – and getting the CIA’s inspector general to issue what amounted to an institutional confession in 1998 – was to have The New York Times, The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times lobby for, essentially, his banishment from journalism.
The major media pile-on was so intense and so effective that Webb lost his job at the San Jose Mercury-News and could never find regular work in his profession again. Betrayed by his journalistic colleagues, his money gone, his family broken and his life seemingly hopeless, Webb committed suicide on Dec. 9, 2004.

Even then, the Los Angeles Times wrote up his obituary as if the paper were telling the life story of an organized-crime boss, not a heroic journalist. The Times obit was then republished by The Washington Post.

In other words, on one of the most significant scandals of the Reagan era, major newspapers, which now want to serve as the arbiters of truth for  the Internet, demonstrated how disdainful they actually are toward truth when it puts the U.S. government in a harsh light.

Indeed, if it had been up to the big newspapers, this important chapter of modern history would never have been known. A decade earlier, in 1985, Brian Barger and I first exposed the Contra-cocaine connection for The Associated Press – and we watched as the big papers turned their backs on the scandal then, too.....




Gareth Porter at MiddleEastEye
US strikes on Syrian troops:
Report data contradicts 'mistake' claims

Moscow and Damascus cited the attacks as the reason for declaring an end to the ceasefire in Syria
The summary report on an investigation into US and allied air strikes on Syrian government troops has revealed irregularities in decision-making consistent with a deliberate targeting of Syrian forces.

The report, released by US Central Command on 29 November, shows that senior US Air Force officers at the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) at al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar, who were responsible for the decision to carry out the September airstrike at Deir Ezzor:

    misled the Russians about where the US intended to strike so Russia could not warn that it was targeting Syrian troops
    
    ignored information and intelligence analysis, warning that the positions to be struck were Syrian government rather than Islamic State
    
    shifted abruptly from a deliberate targeting process to an immediate strike in violation of normal Air Force procedures

Last week Brig. Gen. Richard Coe, the lead US official on the investigating team, told reporters that US air strikes in Deir Ezzor on 17 September, which killed at least 62 - and possibly more than 100 - Syrian army troops, was the unintentional result of “human error”.

The report itself says that the investigators found “no evidence of misconduct” - but it is highly critical of the decision process and does not offer any explanations for that series of irregularities.
How the strikes killed off ceasefire deal

The strikes against two Syrian army positions were the pivotal event in the breakdown of the Syrian ceasefire agreement reached between the United States and Russia in September. .....




From EuropeOnlineMag
Turkey airstrike kills US and German citizens: Syrian Kurdish group

A Turkish airstrike in Syria has killed two militants - one from the United States and one from Germany - from a group allied with the main Kurdish militia in the country, according to a statement from a local Syrian military council on Thursday.

The two were killed near the northern Syrian city of Minbij, which the Kurds, along with Arab allies and backed by United States airstrikes, seized from the Islamic State extremist group after protracted battles.

Turkey opposes the presence of the Syrian Democratic Forces - an umbrella group dominated by the Kurds - near the city of Minbij. Ankara wants its own Syrian armed groups to take control over the area.....

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Fascinating .... worth a watch



Prof Michael Persinger talks about a subject that might seem too far-fetched at this point in time but chances are a large percentage of our planet's humans will be able to master this skill in due course.



Monday, December 5, 2016

Sunlight being thrown on the pedophilia and satanic rituals among the demonic of this planet


I am glad that these demonic practices are coming to light. Sure, I will admit that plenty of what's being put out there might not have legs, but as long as people, especially parents, are made aware that there is danger and dangerous individuals out there who are hiding in plain sight, it serves the purpose.  Awareness of what the most unsavory of human beings are fully capable of doing to children, is the first step in safeguarding the most vulnerable, the innocent  kids.



Michael Hichborn at LepantoInstitue
Former Satanist: “I Performed Satanic Rituals Inside Abortion Clinics”

....When I was about 12, a friend introduced me to a group that played Dungeons and Dragons that also believed that magick was real. It turned out that this group was a satanic coven. A lot of people ask me, ‘wouldn’t you run and hide at that point?’ I remind them that I grew up in the 70’s where satanic covens on TV are really scary, but … I love pinball machines, video games, and science fiction, like Star Trek and Star Wars, and these guys had almost every science fiction and fantasy movie you could ever want to see. They had pinball machines, an in-ground pool, a big barbeque pit, and it was just like a boys and girls club, and it was just a lot of fun. Let me put it this way, they knew how to recruit. They knew everything that a kid would want to do, so I got involved with it that way.
That was my first cult. I was in there until I was about 18, and then I joined the World Church of Satan, which is a much bigger, world-wide cult. The position that I attained is called a High Wizard. In a big satanic coven, they are the people who do the magick for the coven. There could be as few as one, and as many as 10. The general number [of high wizards in a coven] is between 2 and 5, and our job was to travel around the world doing whatever spells people want you to do. Now, when I say people, I mean rock stars, movie stars, political figures, rich people … there’s no limit to who will want a spell and what they’re willing to pay for it.....